US NFP misses expectations as Canadian employment change beats

The latest US non-farm payrolls missed expectations of 164K to print at 145K and not only this the previous number was revised lower to 256K.

The Canadian employment change recovered from last months shock result to record a reading of 35.2K vs expectations of 25K.

As can be expected the immediate reaction was bearish for the dollar after a few great readings over the last couple of months and a strong ADP number during the week.

To be honest, this number is nothing really to worry about as 145K is still a relatively good number in the grand scheme of things. Elsewhere in the report, Average hourly earnings M/M and Y/Y missed expectations but recorded rises. The month on month figure came in at 0.1% vs expectations of 0.3% which is disappointing as a strong labour market usually comes with a rise in wages due to competitiveness.

The DXY has bounced off 97.50 to push down to 97.40 but the main move was seen us USD/CAD. The pair is now trading 0.20% lower on the session and falling at the time of writing. The pair dropped 30 pips straight away after the release of the data and now traders could be looking to the 1.3017 support zone and beyond that the 1.2952 wave low.